Four legs good, two legs .. better?

Several months ago, during the healthcare debate, the House of Representatives considered a procedure that would allow the House to "deem-and-pass" the Senate version of the healthcare bill without actually voting on the Senate bill, but rather on a substitute bill. Eventually, they decided against the procedure, mostly due to the uncertainty of its constitutionality.

In the past few weeks, it has been reported that the current Congressional leadership had decided not to produce a budget for fiscal year 2011. Congressional budgets are not explicitly required by the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 enumerates the powers of the legislature, which includes this (emphasis mine):

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

I don't want to bore you (any more than normal) with all the legal precedent, but a Supreme Court ruling in the 1987 case South Dakota vs. Dole, 483 (U.S. 203) sheds some additional light on the power of Congress to spend. In essence:

(1) the spending power must be exercised in pursuit of the general welfare, (2) grant conditions must be clearly stated, (3) the conditions must be related to a federal interest in the national program or project, and (4) the spending power cannot be used to induce states to do things that would themselves be unconstitutional.

So Congress has the power to spend money, and traditionally (albeit loosely) aligns that spending to a budget. Representatives and Senators haggle over the amounts originally submitted by the President, until agreement is reached, at which point a series of spending bills, called appropriations, are passed by the Congress and signed by the President - at which point money flows.

This year, for various reasons - all political and likely directly related to the 2010 mid-term elections - the majority party has "cancelled" the traditional budget resolution process. Instead, they've decided to go the "deem-and-pass" route (emphasis mine):

Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the “deeming” document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget.

Those "pesky constraints" are designed to maintain transparency and accountability for how Congress spends taxpayer money. And you thought the government was a fiscal disaster before.

Never before -- since the creation of the Congressional budget process -- has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose a budget then deemed the non-existent budget as passed as a means to avoid a direct, recorded vote on a budget, but still allow Congress to spend taxpayer money.

No one knows what's in that $1.12 trillion "budget" - or even that it only represents a percentage of the spending. (Note: The President's FY11 budget was totaled at $3.8 trillion.) There is simply no traceability to something that doesn't exist. To me, it goes beyond reckless - it reeks of incompetence, and a cowardice that strongly suggests an inability to legislate, lead, and govern.

Seriously, are there any grown-ups left up there? I'm starting to have Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies flashbacks.